Dreadful Fate - Vengeance (2018)

When a band is coming in off a demo called The Sin of Sodom, has a cover character similar to the old executioner from Sodom's In the Sign of Evil EP, and is listed as playing roughly the same form of disgusting, aggressive proto blackened/death thrash as Sodom, then it's only natural that my expectations for this debut Dreadful Fate full-length involved some extent of throwback Teutonic worship from the early to mid 80s era, when a particular trio of bands made a name for themselves out of a more carnal, extreme brand of the thrash happenings overseas. Sure enough, these Swedes tear more than a couple of pages from the In the Sign of Evil/Obsessed by Cruelty manual, and steal them home from the library, but there were certainly some points here where I was feeling more of a Mille Petrozza spin on the vocals than Tom Angelripper, and even a handful of riffs I'd attribute to a formative Destruction inspiration (Sentence of Death, etc).

You could see Vengeance as capturing that old, hellish energy circa Obsessed by Cruelty or Endless Pain, maybe even a little Rrröööaaarrr; that unrepentant rawness, and then building something slightly more structured out of it. This is delivered through loads of faster-paced, vicious riffs which don't exactly come off creative at any stage, but at the same time aren't mindless...there is a clear effort and fury being placed into their execution. The solos in particular are ridiculously well placed, energetic, and flinging themselves around in the true frantic fashion that thrash solos once excelled in...not to the point that they are memorable, but always a good way to round out or cap off a track and give you just that added level of intensity and abandon. The drumming is lightning quick and muscular, with a strong slap to the snare that keeps this engine chugging along even if you get a little underwhelmed with some of the riffs themselves. A number of these show some degree of sophistication and lead to a few notes you wouldn't expect, especially in a cut like "Hour of Reprisal" which I thought was bloody great. They don't stick entirely to the faster stuff, there are a few slower, Celtic Frost-like chug stretches which bring a little more balance to the overall album.

Vocals are rapacious barks highly redolent of two thirds of the German Big Three in their youth, with perhaps a few, gnarly nods to later throwback bands like Raise Hell. The whole sound is washed out in a slightly sibilant, unkempt mix, which sadly didn't do a lot for me. I understand entirely that sort of retro sincerity they were targeting, but I feel like the music itself would have been delivered more lethally in a richer recording, slightly cleaner and punchier for the rhythm guitars. When you look at the actual collective resumee of these guys...Merciless, Thorium, Nominon, Interment, In Aeternum, Hypnosia...that's quite a lot of background, so I'm sure they could have managed a better production, only chose to do it this way intentionally to capture that underground appeal. But it just didn't light enough of a fire under the album for me, and so the experience was a little dry, the riffs and songwriting just wasn't at the level of scene peers like Antichrist or Entrench who excel within this very same niche. Still, Vengeance is a debut which exhibits plenty of capability on the part of the musicians involved...a little more polish, a mildly different sonic envelope, and a few central riffs that stick to the ears better, and Dreadful Fate could be a formidable thrash act indeed.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] 

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